Aftershocks

“I first met Jinx when I was thirteen.” Lux said, the others snapped their heads to her, even Ekko looking slightly mollified at her decision to stay and share. Lux was glad that the man had calmed slightly, she didn’t really hold anything against him and from what she knew of Jinx’s opinions about her former friend she didn’t either. As Lux continued to speak she felt the swell of memories drag her away, easily able to remember the cold piltovan evening that she had first met the blue haired wild child. “It was just after my brother had left home to go and join up with the Dauntless Vanguard. My mother was getting worse with only me to focus on.”

_____

“Luxanna,” her mothers eyes pierced her from across the breakfast table. Lux jumped slightly, swallowing. “Yes mother?” she chanced a glance down from her mother’s face to her plate. Her gloved hands hid her whitening knuckles as she squeezed her cutlery. “We will be going to Piltover for a gala next week. I trust I can expect you to pack appropriately. You will be provided clothes for the event but the rest will be up to you. You will of course be expected to comport yourself appropriately throughout our visit. And any…” her mother paused, casting a long eye down to Lux’s gloved hands. “displays will be kept to a minimum. I am sure that a home could be found for you with the illuminators in the capital should this mission go poorly. It would not be considered strange for a young noble to dedicate herself to charitable work.” Her mother arched an eyebrow as Lux failed to respond, startling her into action. “Of course mother, I’ll ensure nothing untoward occurs.”

_____

Lux saw the three people at the table sharing a glance. She supposed it was an interesting look into the Demacian system of raising children for them. She also supposed that they might not yet know that she was a mage, or what that would have meant for her growing up. She considered stopping to explain to them, but felt it unnecessary. They would either figure it out as her story continued, or they wouldn’t. Either way this was all just context for her first meeting with Jinx. She was only really dragging it out for her own enjoyment, living in memories felt much more pleasant than the alternative right now. “Despite my mothers warnings I needed to use my light, at that stage I found it very difficult to hold it in for long periods of time, and the voyage to Piltover had been a sickening test of my control. It was as soon as we arrived and were situated that I went looking for somewhere to practice. There was a park across the street from the hotel and I thought that the tree cover, with the city being so bright anyway, would be adequate.”

_____

Her mother was out at a dinner and had left explicit instructions for Lux to not do anything dangerous. However, Lux was certain that she would be fine. The hotel was just across the road and there was nobody in the park that she could see, plus she had had to climb the locked gate to even get in in the first place. Meaning that there was very little chance of anyone important catching her. So, with a final glance around, Lux removed her gloves and released her light. It was after about five minutes of doing her best to keep the light low the relief of finally releasing it barely beating out the still ever present fear of discovery.

She had been trying to work on her control recently, in the hope of eventually being able to stymie the light totally. So Lux started trying to vary the amount of light she was producing, from using her whole hands to produce light to just her palms, then just her fingers. It was as she was doing this that she heard it. A gasp from somewhere off to her left, where the park bordered onto another set of streets. She turned in shock, the light spilling from her hands growing in intensity as she was surprised. Illuminating a girl about her age staring at her from a gap in the trees. She had blue hair that was tied into a braid and seemed to be wearing numerous layers of clothing all of which, Lux noticed, was dirty to at least some degree.

_____

“Honestly, I didn’t think much of her when I first saw her, I suppose I was too scared to be seeing someone at all to notice the little details I can think back on now. Like the gun at her belt or the way her boots had climbing spikes on the bottom. Or the backpack full of information.” Vi startled slightly at that, as did Ekko although to a lesser extent. Lux looked at them with bitter humour. “What? You thought that Jinx just one day became a fighter under Silco? No, when she was young she was an information gatherer. Nobody in Piltover bothers to check for small undercity girls clinging to the outside of their windows as they do their dirty deals. Until all of a sudden Silco is blackmailing them with things that they swear he could never know. But as I said, I didn’t know that then. The only thing I could focus on was her eyes. And the fact that she was looking at me like I was the most incredible thing she’d ever seen. I suppose she’d never really heard of or seen proper magic before.”

_____

Lux was terrified, staring directly at the blue haired girl. Who was just watching her, until a few seconds passed and her expression changed a little when Lux cut off her light. “Why did you stop?” The blue haired girl asked, approaching slightly. “How were you doing that anyway, is it an invention?” Lux’s heart soared, if she convinced the other girl that it was something other than magic she’d be able to get out scot free.

However the blue haired girl didn’t even stop speaking, moving closer to Lux again. “Whatever it was, it was awesome, the light was so pretty! Can you do other colours? I like purple. Oh or green.” The girl had stopped approaching now, close enough that Lux could make out a healing cut on her cheek and the faint signs of a healing black eye. “You thought it was pretty?” Lux asked, her shock at the sudden compliment cutting through her wariness. After all this wasn’t Demacia. She had even heard that some mages in Piltover were allowed to walk around free. Maybe here, with this girl, she could find someone who wouldn’t mind her magic. “Are you kidding!?” The blue haired girl said, her excitement palpable. “It was the prettiest light I’ve ever seen.”

_____

Lux felt herself smile at the memory. “Honestly, I don’t even really remember how we got talking after that. At some point she figured out that I wasn’t using a piece of technology to make the light. And she thought that was even cooler. But then I realised how much time had passed and I had to get back to the hotel before my mother realised I was gone. But on my way out she asked if I was going to be back again, and said she wanted to see the light more. I said I would be, just not the next day since I was busy. Perhaps you remember that gala Caitlyn,” the blue haired council woman nodded with a put upon sigh, remembering them being forced to sit together as their parents discussed business and ‘beneficial arrangements’ for hours and hours.

“Well I did see her the day after the gala, and the day after that. Every day of my stay in Piltover I saw her in the evening. We talked and laughed and she gave me ideas for things I could try with my light. It was the closest thing I'd ever had to a friend. And it felt wonderful.” Lux felt the three’s eyes grow soft as she said this. She supposed it was sad in its own way. But she couldn't bring herself to regret the position that had led to her meeting Jinx. “But eventually it became the last night of my stay in Piltover.”

_____

Lux felt tears prick in her eyes at the look on her friend's face. The blue haired girl looked heartbroken, and Lux doubted she looked all that much better. “Will I see you again?” The bluenette asked, voice trembling slightly. Lux shook her head, “I don't think we will be coming back.” She hadn't got the feeling that her mothers mission had gone very well, at least if the increased anger that she addressed Lux with was anything to go by. It was saying it aloud that Lux couldn't hold back her own sobs. The girl had become such a firm fixture in Lux’s thoughts even in the short time that they'd known each other, even though they didn't even know each other's name.

___

“I suppose it seems foolish in hindsight,” Lux said almost to herself, feeling the eyes of her audience on her, “to have become attached so quickly. But I think we were both so desperate for a friend at that time that we latched on. I don't think my mother ever quite understood why I was disconsolate leaving Piltover that time. And I doubt she remembered it enough to be suspicious when I volunteered to join her a year later, when she announced another diplomatic mission to the city. I don't even know what I had planned honestly, I didn't know her name. We'd not discussed our lives beyond that I was from Demacia and she was from the Undercity. Although she had been eager to tell me of her ‘cool job helping her dad’.” Lux couldn't help but chuckle at the thought. Jinx really had been adorable at that age.

She had wanted to try and find her so badly. Returning to Demacia had made it even clearer how much she didn’t interact with anyone in the same way she had interacted with the blue haired girl in the park. No-one slung their arm over her shoulder after she told a joke, or asked her to try and make more light. No-one called her magic beautiful. She was desperate to feel that again, that kinship and connection.

“Fortunately, I didn’t even manage to stay in Piltover long enough to start considering doing something as foolish as diving into the undercity to try and find her.” Lux said with a wry grin. Watching the three Piltover natives' eyes widen at the implication of a young Demacian noble wandering slapdash into Zaun with nothing but a vague description of Silco’s daughter. “Turns out there was a reason she was trusted to sneak into Piltover for information. Also it turns out that the arrival of Demacian nobles, especially with there being no large gala’s happening, was news that made the rounds.” Lux let her audience hang on her words a little, finding that she was very much enjoying having an audience for her memories of Jinx, finding that the pain of her grief was being slowly overtaken by the warmth of the affection she held for her friend.

____

Lux lay on her hotel bed, thinking hard. She had a few ideas of how to maybe attract the attention of her friend. But a thought was bothering her. What if her friend hadn't responded to what she'd tried so far, not because she hadn't seen Lux's lightshow in the park yesterday evening. But because she didn't care. It had been almost a whole year. Maybe the blue haired girl didn't think about Lux the way Lux thought about her. Surely, Lux reasoned, someone as brilliant and fun as the other girl had flocks of friends around the city.

The thoughts were enough to forestall her more wild plans, like standing on top of a building and blasting as much light into the sky as she could. Or trying to sneak down into the undercity to meet the girl. Lux was certain she could do it, she had been perfecting her sneaking around the manor and many of the people her mother employed said they hadn't noticed her at all. Lux was about to mentally launch into another frenzied planning spree when she was distracted by a noise at the window.

Lux was planning to ignore it, there were lots of sounds she didn't recognise in this city. Who's to say that the weirdly quiet, rhythmic thumping wasn't just one of the strange vehicles that Piltover had instead of carriages. Lux rolled over slightly in bed, figuring that staring out the window might at least give her some clue. Plus her nose was starting to hurt from lying face down for so long. She blinked once, twice, and then finally when her vision didn’t clear, raised her hand to rub at her eyes. Lux opened her eyes again and squinted towards the window. But despite the pressure she had applied to them her eyes were still telling her the same thing. That outside of her window, pale as the moon that should have been visible through the opening, was her friend's face. Tentatively, Lux raised a hand and waved.

A blinding grin split the other girls face, and she swayed precariously as one of her hands released its grip on the gilded windowsill to return the gesture. Instantly Lux was on her feet, heart leaping into her throat as she ran to the window and attempted to open it. It took her a few seconds before she realised that she had absolutely no idea how the strange mechanisms that seemed to keep the window closed worked. A fact she communicated to the girl on the other side of the glass with a series of baffled hand gestures that seemed to make the other girl laugh. She was ushered closer to the window with a gesture, at which point the blue haired girl pointed down across the street to the park at which they had first met. Lux nodded eagerly and turned to leave her room as the blue-haired girl dropped out of sight.

_____

“Wait, she came to find you?” Caitlyn interrupted her reminiscence with a raised brow, a level of disbelief surrounding him that Lux decided not to find offensive. “She did. I think she had missed me as much as I had missed her. I can’t imagine that being the protected daughter of a drug lord was a particularly sociable position. Especially combined with the issues I think we all know she was dealing with at the time.” Lux saw her words land in the winces of Vi and Ekko. The two no doubt considering the…. Unstable frame of mind that Jinx had often been known to be in. “I think that really is what drew us together originally. We were two people who so desperately wanted to be known as who we were instead of who others thought we were. Whether that be the demure damsel of the Crownguard Family.” Lux snorted at that, knowing with certainty that there were very few people who saw her as that now. “Or the unstable daughter of the closest thing the Undercity had to a king.”

“Anyway,” Lux saw that no one was going to follow up on Caitlyn’s interruption of her story so continued. “We saw eachother every evening for the rest of the two weeks my mother and I were in Piltover. And when it was time for me to leave again, Jinx made a suggestion.”

____

“You’re really not going to be able to come back this time?” Jinx said to the girl who sat beside her on the grassy park ground, the evening dew fighting its way through their trousers to chill the skin of their butts and legs as they sat, leant against one-another. The week that Lux had been here had been one of the best of her life. Her mother had been busy, distracted, by her success in Piltovan diplomacy that Lux had had free reign to spend almost every late afternoon and evening with her friend, who’s name she had finally learned.

“I don’t think so,” the blonde confided in her friend, shifting slightly to pull the slighter girl closer to her, so that their heads were almost touching from where the blue haired girl was resting against Lux’s shoulder. Hearing her friend's sigh of contentment at the increased contact Lux muffled a smile, it hadn’t taken her long to realise that her friend was a huge fan of physical contact constantly seeking it after Lux had been receptive when Jinx had tackled her into a hug that first night. “Seems like whatever mission mother had here last time that brought us back so soon has been completed.” Lux sighed heavily and felt Jinx shift slightly to be able to look at her. “So tomorrow we have to leave again.”

As she said the words Lux felt the same crushing sadness that she felt before, and her shoulder trembled slightly as she held back sobs. “Lux, I've got an idea.” She heard Jinx say from beside her, Lux had noticed that the girl had seemed to be taking this news better than the last time it had happened. Though perhaps that was simply that it already happened once had hardened the two of them to the feeling already. However, Lux thought it more likely that whatever plan Jinx had was allowing the other girl to distract herself from the possibility, and Lux found the excitement infectious.

“What is it?” She prompted the other girl, turning her head so that their eyes met. Lux had always heard her and her family's eyes described as enchanting, but it wasn’t until she looked into Jinx’s that she understood why. Their eyes were theoretically similar shades, but when Lux looked at her own in a mirror she didn’t see the myriad flecks of deepest ocean and widest sky blue that she did in Jinx’s eyes. For a moment Lux let herself set adrift on the eddies and currents of Jinx’s eyes, before the other girl's voice snapped her back to earth.

“I did some reading about Demacia while you were gone,” Jinx admitted her eyes shifting slightly as though the fact that she’d missed Lux was an embarrassing secret to reveal and not something that warmed the other girl's heart. Lux wasn’t sure, if in all her thirteen years of life anyone had ever missed her enough to research her. She would have found the idea sad, had Jinx not broken the pattern. “What did you find?” She asked, becoming aware that the sun was creeping below the horizon, aware that they were running out of time. Jinx, either oblivious to Lux’s growing sadness or because of it, continued her words speeding up.

“Is it true you guys have like, letters and stuff that you can send? I read that you don’t need the pneuma-tubes so you can send them anywhere?” Jinx asked, her head coming off Lux’s shoulder as she became more excited when Lux nodded. “Cus Silco said that he could get letters to Demacia and back if I wanted, so I was thinking that we could send each other letters and stuff!” Lux felt herself draw a heavy breath. She hadn’t even considered that that would be possible. That Jinx’s father might be able to get Jinx’s letters into the Demacian courier system, and Lux’s letters out. It wouldn’t be fast communication, but it would be something. She would be able to keep her friend in her life. She hadn’t even realised she was moving before Jinx’s back hit the dirt as Lux piled on top of her in a wild hug. Their laughter lit up the slowly dimming evening, only stopping for Lux to share the details that would enable Jinx to send the first letter to her.

_____

“So you started exchanging letters?” Caitlyn asked, politely ignoring the slight glimmer of tears in Lux’s eyes, “Through Silco’s network?” Lux nodded, unsure at the tone Caitlyn had adopted at the mention of the man. “Then Lux, I’m afraid that the reason your communication from Jinx stopped is because….. Silco died…. Jinx killed him. Lux drew in a sharp breath, the implications of that hitting her all at once. Oh poor Jinx, the situation she must have been in for that to occur. Lux knew that as unconventional as their relationship had been, as much as Silco hadn’t necessarily done what most would have considered a good job of raising Jinx. He had loved the girl to the end of the world, and Jinx had loved him just as much.

“How…?” Lux felt herself asking, “How did that happen? Jinx wouldn’t just have…” Lux felt steel grow in her spine slightly as a thought occurred, what if they were lying. She had no reason to believe these people, and sure she couldn’t see any signs of falsehood in Caitlyn’s expression but she wasn’t fool enough to consider herself infallible.

She stared into Caitlyn’s eyes, she needed to buy herself time to think, needed to dangle some other interesting tidbit of her history with Jinx for these people while she thought, while she figured out why they would lie to her. What purpose it would bring them, after all, if there wasn’t one then the chance of them lying was low. “That was only how we started exchanging letters anyway. Silco’s death itself, even the dissolution of his network shouldn’t have had any effect. Not after Jinx visited me in Demacia, not after she gave me what she made.”

Lux forced herself to act a little skittish as she drew the knapsack containing her gift from Jinx from its place at her hip. The letter transmitter was a prized possession, not just because it was from Jinx, and it was what allowed them to communicate. But because it was technologically advanced. Enough that Lux had considered it necessary to hide it during her time at the Illuminators, less it be considered witchcraft itself. She felt the eyes of the three refocus on her, and catching each as though she were simply ensuring they were listening she began the next part of her history with Jinx. Watching each of them for a sign of deceit.